Notice of a fault in the Carboniferous Rocks on the Water of Leith above Currie, with some observations on the geology of the district

Abstract

The operations at present going on, in the process of making the Balerno branch of the Caledonian Railway, afford many excellent opportunities for geologists to examine our Lower Carboniferous rocks. From the commencement of the branch at Slateford, up the bed of the Water of Leith to Currie, we have a series of cuttings through richly fossiliferous sandstones and shales, the equivalents of the Granton and Wardie series. They are found sometimes along the strike of the beds, at other times going down and up the strata across anticlines and synclines, showing clearly the great bends that exist in this part of the Carboniferous series. In the neighbourhood of Currie one or two sections occur, which I mention in the hope that they will interest the members of this Society. One very striking section, which I first observed last summer, occurs on the south bank of the Water of Leith, a short distance above Currie. It is to all appearance a fault. The beds dip into one another on both sides, in the form of a synclinal axis, which is broken in the middle, and separated by a nearly vertical bed of crumbled black shale and large blocks of sandstone. The beds on either side in no way resemble each other. Those on the east side, or nearest Currie, consist of a set of hard greyish sandstones, with occasional thin partings of shale; while on the west side a series of red and yellow clay beds are exposed, quite unlike